For a custom client we're doing a quick generalized map for, I'm looking for December ocean currents and prevailing winds in the northeast Pacific (Hawaii to Seattle, basically). I have a lot of atlas-type illustrations, but can find no GIS data—no, that's not right, the data I find is WAY too detailed for my purposes. Any thoughts? I'm wondering if there's point data for wind, and maybe generalized line data for currents somewhere. I could just resort to tracing an atlas map, but if the data's out there easily found...

"There is much beauty that we fail to see through our own eyes teeming with life forms that give us that perception of our reality. Leaves on the trees blowing gently in the wind, or scarily, the waves pounding through high surf, or lightly on a warm summer’s day; that opportunity to sit or swim in the water on a white beach. That comfort to shout, “The universal conscious do you hear me? I am alive, guide me dear logos towards the path of rightnesses.” Earned what has been kept, no longer to be absorbed into a life filled with cold damn winds and that stubborn fog clouding my vision with nothing but darkness."

I did, and what I could find were extremely detailed survey data (there was a global survey of currents in the early part of this decade, which generated a lot of detailed data, for example). Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. It certainly was surprising not to see "consumer level" information easy to hand, but then currrents are a pretty diffuse phenomenon...

Charles Syrett

Posted 17 August 2009 - 06:00 PM

Charles Syrett

Ultimate Contributor

Validated Member

539 posts

Canada

A few years back I had to create a small map showing currents as they were on a specific time period in an area from Hawaii to Fiji. I used a very dandy little map engine here: http://www.oscar.noaa.gov/datadisplay/ Maybe this will work for your ocean currents. I wasn't asked for winds, so didn't research that....

I did, and what I could find were extremely detailed survey data (there was a global survey of currents in the early part of this decade, which generated a lot of detailed data, for example). Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. It certainly was surprising not to see "consumer level" information easy to hand, but then currrents are a pretty diffuse phenomenon...

A few years back I had to create a small map showing currents as they were on a specific time period in an area from Hawaii to Fiji. I used a very dandy little map engine here: http://www.oscar.noaa.gov/datadisplay/ Maybe this will work for your ocean currents. I wasn't asked for winds, so didn't research that....

That is seriously cool. Perfect. Thanks!And thanks, Frax, for the link too!